Dance to the pibroch! saved! we are saved!—is it you? is it you?

Saved by the valor of Havelock, saved by the blessing of Heaven!

"Hold it for fifteen days!" we have held it for eightyseven!

And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew.

61

THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW 1

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Pipes of the misty moorlands,
Voice of the glens and hills;
The droning of the torrents,

The treble of the rills!

Not the braes 2 of broom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain!

Dear to the Lowland reaper,
And plaided mountaineer,-
To the cottage and the castle

The Scottish pipes are dear;

3. Pibroch. A kind of music played on the bagpipes, usually martial. 1. In a letter to Lowell, Whittier says of this poem: "It is in strict accordance with the facts of the rescue. In the distance the beleaguered garrison heard the stern and vengeful slogan of the MacGregors; but when the troops of Havelock came in view of the English flag still floating from the Residency, the pipers struck up the im mortal air of Burns, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot.'" Pickard, Life and Letters of Whittier. See the note on the preceding

poem.

2. Braes. Slopes, hillsides.

Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch 3
O'er mountain, loch, and glade;
But the sweetest of all music

Day by day the Indian tiger

Louder yelled, and nearer crept;
Round and round the jungle-serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-
Pray today!" the soldier said;
"Tomorrow, death's between us

And the wrong and shame we dread."

Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,
Till their hope became despair;
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
With her ear unto the ground:
"Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

Hushed the wounded man his groaning;
Hushed the wife her little ones;

6

Alone they heard the drum-roll
And the roar of Sepoy & guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true;—
As her mother's cradle-crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.

3. Pibroch. A kind of music played on the bagpipes, usually martial.

4. Loch. Lake or bay.

5. Pipes. Bagpipes.

6. Sepoy. A native Indian soldier employed by the English.

Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing,
Of the heart than of the ear,
She knew the droning pibroch,
She knew the Campbell's call:
"Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,—
The grandest o' them all!"

O, they listened, dumb and breathless,
And they caught the sound at last;
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee 7
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's;
"God be praised!-the March of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!"

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!

Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
The air of Auld Lang Syne.

O'er the cruel roll of war-drums

Rose that sweet and homelike strain;
And the tartan clove the turban,

As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

7. Goomtee. The river on which Lucknow is situated.

Dear to the corn-land reaper
And plaided mountaineer,-
To the cottage and the castle
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain, glen, and glade;
But the sweetest of all music
The Pipes at Lucknow played!

62

FIGHT 1

THE TALE OF A GUNNER AT PLATTSBURGH, 1814

PERCY MACKAYE

I

Jock bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs;
He scraped the fresh sleet from the frozen sign:
Men Wanted-Volunteers. Like gusts of brine
He whiffed deliriums

Of sound-the droning roar of rolling, rolling drums
And shrilling fifes, like needles in his spine,

And drank, blood-bright from sunrise and wild shore,
The wine of war.

1. This poem is based upon the battle of Lake Champlain, near Plattsburg, N. Y., September 11, 1814. In this battle the Americans under Commodore MacDonough defeated the British squadron under Downie. At one time MacDonough was knocked senseless for a few moments by a falling boom. A short time after this he was struck forcibly in the face by the flying head of the first gunner, who was killed by a cannon ball. This poem was written in 1914, and read by the author at Plattsburg on the hundredth anniversary of the battle.

With ears and eyes he drank and dizzy brain
Till all the snow danced red. The little shacks
That lined the road of muffled hackmatacks 2

Were roofed with the red stain,

Which spread in reeling rings on icy-blue Champlain
And splotched the sky like daubs of sealing-wax,
That darkened when he winked, and when he stared
Caught fire and flared.

Men Wanted-Volunteers! The village street,
Topped by the slouching store and slim flagpole,
Loomed grand as Rome to his expanding soul;
Grandly the rhythmic beat.

Of feet in file and flags and fifes and filing feet,
The roar of brass and unremitting roll

Of drums and drums bewitched his boyish mood—
Till he hallooed.

His strident echo stung the lake's wild dawn

And startled him from dreams. Jock rammed his cap And rubbed a numb ear with the furry flap,

Then bolted like a faun,

Bounding though shin-deep sleigh-ruts in his shaggy

brawn,

Blowing white frost-wreaths from red mouth agap
Till, in a gabled porch beyond the store,

He burst the door;

"Mother!" he panted. "Hush! Your pa ain't up; He's worser since this storm. What's struck ye so?" "It's volunteers!" The old dame stammered

"Oh!" and stopped, and stirred her sup

Of morning tea, and stared down in the trembling cup. "They're musterin' on the common now." "I know," She nodded feebly; then with sharp surmise

She raised her eyes:

2. Hackmatacks. Larcn trees: tamaracks.